'Kristen,' woman at center of the Spitzer scandal is from New Jersey

Photo taken from the MySpace page attributed to Ashley Alexandra Dupre. The photo is titled St. Tropez 2007.

The high-priced escort at the center of New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer's downfall is a Jersey girl.

Kristen, as she was known in an FBI affidavit outlining a Feb. 13 tryst with the governor, grew up Ashley Youmans in Belmar and attended Wall High School. She's now an aspiring singer who lives in Manhattan and goes by the name Ashley Alexandra Dupre.

The $1,000-an-hour prostitute, a statuesque brunette, could not be reached on Wednesday, and her New York lawyer, Don Buchwald, declined to comment on her role in the scandal, which exploded into view earlier this week. An apologetic Spitzer resigned on Wednesday, effective Monday.

But Dupre's MySpace page offers a glimpse into her life, which the 22-year-old escort said had at times been troubled and lonely.

"My path has not been easy," she wrote. "When I was 17, I left home. It was my decision and I've never looked back. Left my hometown. Left a broken family. Left abuse. Left an older brother who had already split. Left and learned what it was like to have everything, and lose it, again and again."

She wrote that she had been "broke and homeless" and had abused drugs. She survived, she wrote, because of her love of music.

AP/Seth WenigThe Chelsea Landmark on West 25th St. where records show Ashley Alexandra Dupre lives in New York.

"I am all about my music, and my music is all about me," she said. "It flows from what I've been through, what I've seen and how I feel. I live in New York and am on top of the world. Been here since 2004 and I love this city, I love my life here."

In court documents outlining the operations of the escort service, Emperor's Club VIP, she is identified only as Kristen, a prostitute who met with a client - later identified as Spitzer - on the day before Valentine's Day at the Renaissance Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C.

The connection between Kristen and Dupre was first reported Wednesday by the New York Times.

In a brief interview with the newspaper, Dupre said she had been under great stress and had hardly slept since Spitzer's name was linked to the prostitution ring.

"I just don't want to be thought of as a monster," she told the Times. "This has been a very difficult time. It is very complicated."

Dupre is one of at least three New Jerseyans connected to the scandal. Authorities say Mark Brener, 62, and Cecil Suwal, 23, ran the pricey service from the Cliffside Park apartment they shared.

Brener and Suwal, charged with money laundering and promoting prostitution across state lines, remain behind bars.

Known as Ceci, Suwal graduated from Blair Academy, an exclusive, ivy-walled prep school in Warren County.

The school's headmaster, T. Chandler Hardwick, remembered her as an amiable, ambitious student who fit in well.

"Ceci was a very bright, appealing young woman when she was at Blair," said Hardwick, the school's headmaster for two decades. "Certainly nothing in her record at Blair would indicate she would make the choice she did."